Fix it? Now I am Really Confused.

I was reading recently about how the various futuristic pundits see how our current economic challenges will be evolving in the months a years to come. Many of these "knowledgeable" folks see the economic contraction we have been experiencing over the past year or so, continuing for at least a while longer. In addition, similar to a post of mine a few months ago, the ongoing promise that at some point in the not-too-distant future, things will "bottom out" and we will be back on the road to financial abundance. I just do not see much real evidence of this at this point in our collective journey.

I am starting to realize that many Americans are being shown a very powerful and perhaps life changing picture right now. For the vast majority of us we have only known the limitless abundance of a consumer culture, and we were convinced it would never need to slow down. But now it appears that the piper is calling and we are loathe to hear what he has to say. I read almost everyday that the economy is gaining strength and we are headed for a rebound. The fact that some Banks are showing profit is ludicrous to highlight since we recently gave them ten's of billions of dollars. And in case no one has noticed they have not been dolling it out very swiftly. It has to make their balance sheet look better!

So if all this economic activity is not filtering itself down to the common folk, what are we to expect? Well, I think it will be fair to say that we can expect to consume less in the years to come. We need some time to start paying off our debt and learning the joys of saving money for a change.

I predict that in the future,when that lawn mover, or drill, or God forbid the DVD player start acting up, instead of just tossing it away, we just might revert to that ancient tactic of fixing it. Huh? I realize this may make no sense to many of you so let me try to explain.

Not all that long ago say in the early 60's, I can clearly remember hanging out with my Dad in the garage which doubled as his personal workshop. We would spend hour after hour with one another while he worked on stuff. I also remember that a significant amount of his effort went into fixing things. In simplest terms it means that when some household or recreational item stopped working as planned, he would take it into his workshop, get out his bright lights and special glasses that made everything look really big, and actually take the object apart and try to see what was the problem. It was truly fascinating and I often emulated him by taking many of my toys apart just to see what was inside.

I remember vividly taking going with my Dad and a shoebox full of glass "tubes" down to the electronics store and plugging them into the tube tester. The ones that register BAD were replaced by new versions. Then we would drive back home, put them all back into their respective sockets, flip the switch, and watch the radio or TV or tape player come back to life. It was almost magical!

The coming years are going to give us the chance, if we take it, to learn both how to fix things as well as make more and more things that can be fixed. Since there is no way we can spend our way out of our predicament, I suspect we will be forced to re-learn how to make things that last and when necessary, fix them when they break.

And maybe, just maybe, we will get to spend a bit more time with one another around the workbench instead of blissed out in front of the 52 inch HD plasma screen that virtually no one knows how to fix.

Read Anything Good Lately?

Over the past month or so I have found myself engrossed reading a number of very interesting books. While they are all quite different, they all fall under the overarching heading of resource depletion.

The first book, Plan C: Community Survival Strategies for Peak Oil and Climate by Pat Murphy, describes in great detail a wide variety of actions we can do as individuals and as communities to deal with the coming challenges posed by the twin issues of Peak Oil and Climate Change. This book is packed full of information and should be required reading for any serious student of resource trends.

The second book which I suspect will become one of my favorites of all time is World Made by Hand by James Howard Kunstler. This near-future fictional depiction of life after the end of the oil age is both touching and disturbing. Because it takes place in the not-to-distant future, the remnants of our overly consumerist society are still very present. His attention to detail brings the challenges and success for the characters right into our hearts.

The third book, and one that is receiving a great deal of coverage these days, is Jeff Rubin's Why Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller: Oil and the End of Globalization. Jeff is the chief economist and chief strategist at CIBC World Markets and was one of the first economists to accurately predict soaring oil prices back in 2000 and is now one of the world’s most sought-after energy experts. Jeff clearly lays out his decades of experience and makes an extremely convincing argument why importing plastic toilet seats from China and caesar salads from across the continent, will be totally uneconomical in the not too distant future.

Recreating Local Economies

With the growing expectation that abundant and inexpensive fossil fuels are quickly becoming a thing of the past, there is increasing talk about the need to recreate local economies. However, one of the largest challenges facing Americans, is that for almost anyone now alive, understanding exactly what that means is far from clear. We have grown up under the creation of global networks that bring us almost everything from baby bottles to toilet seats from across the globe. A growing circle of experts are sowing doubt about the feasibility of keeping 13,000 mile supply chains strong and financially competitive in the absence of inexpensive oil.

I do want to be clear that creating local economies which supply us with everything we need is both impossible and unnecessary. But shifting the current balance from 95% non-local to more like 75% local is worth the effort and would have a tremendous positive reduction on our usage of non-renewable liquid fuels like oil and natural gas.

The task of first re-imaging and then taking the necessary steps to implement a local economy, is both a necessary and imposing task. Because this is such an important topic these days, I feel a need to begin a series of posts which focus on how this kind of local economy would work and what would be the most critical elements to begin the process.

A concept of this magnitude needs a framework within which to help organize a coherent response. It feels obvious to me that I must lay out what elements are the most important and then drill down into each area over time. The areas I see as most critical include, food, energy, shelter, and clothing. By designing re-localized economies that can consistently provide us with these basics, I believe we can lay the foundation for resilient local economies.

Stay tuned...

Put GM to Good Use

Now that General Motors has successfully hidden under the protection of Chapter 11, closed thousands of its dealerships and laid off tens of thousands of it loyal employees, it is high time we make them accountable to their new owners - us! If the car companies have any future at all, it should be based on making products we urgently need - starting with public transit. Let the car era wind down gracefully. I project that the program to offer "cash for clunkers" will have a negligible effect on domestic car sales and even less impact on our national carbon emissions.

It is becoming ever clearer that the "Happy Motoring" era is over and we need to rapidly devote our remaining resources to re-localization, walkable communities, and public transit. It obviously requires a very drastic revision of our current collective self-image, of what we aspire to and who we are.

Instead of spending tens of billions of hard-to-justify dollars studying how to implement a high-speed railroad system, the most intelligent choice for us is to fix the existing passenger railroad lines and start cranking out ultra modern passenger cars that will be a joy to ride. We need to prioritize the highway maintenance agenda. Since we will not be able to afford to repave the whole existing system -- and let other nations meet our diminishing demand for cars in the USA.

Preparing for Coming Changes - LEARN

For those who understand where American's energy use is heading, here is a list five actions which will be necessary to help us prepare for the imminent decline of finite fossil fuels.

Source: www.solarcarandtractor.com

(L)OCALIZE agriculture, energy production, social services, essential manufacturing, etc. All will have to regress to a limited “twenty-mile radius” community. This will not be a choice. The inevitable curtailment of transportation fuel will reduce future travel. Intercity light rail will be impossible without energy. www.postcarbon.org.

(E)DUCATE yourself and others. We passed peak oil in late 2008. Natural gas, coal, and fissionable uranium are not far behind. Without ever-increasing energy, real growth, including a debt-based financial system based on future principal plus interest, cannot continue. Recognize the fallacies of bogus solutions like: “There’s plenty left”; “The scientists will save us”; “We can efficiency our way out of our dilemma (not if we don’t reduce consumption)”; “Biofuels, including waste, cellulosic ethanol, and grease will suffice” (at the expense of food). The honest facts must reach the public, the media, and decision-makers even in the midst of denial. Start with www.peakoil.net, www.theoildrum.com, www.321energy.com, etc.

(A)DAPT to a very limited solar-electric future as our only hope of perpetuating any semblance of the brief fossil-fuel age. This vision could be sustainable, clean, and far superior to our ancestor’s harsh existence. A solar-electric sequel could integrate with waning fossil fuels and all other energy sources such as limited hydro or geothermal into a modern electrically-based system and allow individuals to take control of their own production with PV. Also included are wind and concentrated solar.

(R)ATION all fossil fuels starting immediately with gasoline. This is the only way we can reduce consumption on a controlled basis without increasing price-competition and conflict over the remains. Rationing is probably our best chance to buy time for mitigation and give our kids a chance for the remnants of the party.

(N)EGATIVE population growth. This is the toughest and most critical issue. With peak oil we have passed peak growth. Our short cornucopia of excess resources (including fossil fuels and all natural resources) has ended. We have far too many people in the US and the world for a sustainable civilization. If we don’t get the correct facts out and convince people to begin negative population growth, mother nature will reduce population in her own cruel ways. See www.npg.org, www.optimumpopulation.org, www.worldpopulationbalance.org and others.

L.E.A.R.N. - We all need to understand and project this acronym.

Coming to a Yard Near You

The average plate of food travels over 1500 miles to get from the field to your plate. In the process it consumes copious amount of fossil fuels and ends up less than fresh the day it lands on your grocery store shelf.

What if there was a way to bring the growing of fresh fruits and vegetables closer to home? What if we were to take the dramatic step of moving the fields right into our own neighborhoods?

Consider Neighborhood Supported Agriculture.

By converting a small portion of the millions of acres of Kentucky Bluegrass that surround our homes with organic vegetable gardens and orchards we have the opportunity to greatly reduce our dependence on the fossil fuels required to plant, fertilize, harvest, process, pack and transport our food.

In Boulder, Colorado an innovative Neighborhood Supported Agriculture model is bringing local food production and distribution into urban settings. A 3 ½ year old urban farming project called Community Roots Farm was created by farmer Kipp Nash, who has successfully converted 13 front and back yards, and church lawns into vegetable gardens for neighbors and CSA shareholders, with surplus for the local Farmer’s Market and food for families in need - while creating increased community connections among neighbors at the same time.

This model which is being studied in order to help replicate it across the nation is at the forefront of the urban agriculture or locavore movement.

As the economic contraction continues and the cost of oil begin to go up again, the ability to eat locally produced organic food may become one of the most important aspects of sustainability.

The Downside of Ecomomic Growth

With all the talk these days around increasing the flow of money, what would happen if our banks really did start lending in a big way next week?

The stalled economic engine of our country would begin rolling again, we would see a surge in loans to the construction industry, increases in production and (hopefully) sales of autos, large and small manufacturing, people would be called back to work and everything would be great again.

Well... there is one not-so-small problem with that scenario.

For those who have been following the roller coaster ride in the energy industry, you already know how close our current supply and demand is. Since the global economy started to significantly slow last fall, we have reduced our global consumption of oil by over 3 million barrels per day (bpd), to about 83 million bpd. This is about 2.4 million bpd less than in 2008 and the lowest level since 2004. A real reduction, but nothing like the collapse in demand we have been hearing about. On top of that the work to secure both additional sources of oil and investment in alternatives has almost come to a standstill. Billions of dollars of new projects have been delayed or cancelled completely and the oil services industry, those companies actually doing the exploration and drilling, has cut back almost 50% since last year. According to the Rig Count industry website who follows the changing number of active oil and natural gas rigs:

The year-over-year oil exploration in the US is down 42.3 percent. Gas exploration is down 48.0 percent.

So if our economy begins to ramp up again it will not take long for our demand to outpace our supply. When that happens prices go up. Oil has already risen from a low of $35 per barrel to the low $50's while demand has been low. This cycle of economic activity causing higher energy prices is a relationship we have not seen in the past.

We simply do not have the option to just re-start our economy in the same fashion we have been doing for the past 100 years. We are being forced to re-structure our economy to be more resilient to these supply constraints while increasing our local self-sufficiency. This will result in reducing our dependence on massive amounts of energy from faraway countries in order to bring us our food, to heat our homes, and to manufacture the items we truly need for a high standard of living.

Eight Steps to a Bountiful Vegetable Garden

You’ve decided that you want a vegetable garden to lower your grocery bills. But, where do you start? There are eight essential steps to successful vegetable gardening.

Step 1. Pick an appropriate area for your garden. When you choose your site, consider these important factors:

- Sunlight. Most vegetables grow best in full sunlight. Choose an area that gets at least six hours of sunlight a day.

- Soil. The best soil for growing vegetables is a dark soil, rich in nutrients, that has good drainage but will still hold sufficient moisture for the plants. Don’t plant your garden too close to trees and shrubs whose roots will steal nutrients and water from the vegetables.

- Water. Place your garden near your water supply — faucets that can be reached by no more than two hose lengths.

Step 2. Create your site plan. Make a plan before you purchase your seeds or plants. It will help you decide how many you need to buy to best fit the available space. Base your plan on the vegetables that your family likes, how much work you want to do on the garden and how much room there is in the garden. Create a quick sketch to follow while you are planting.

Step 3. Buy your plants and/or seeds. Be sure that the plants you get will grow well in the area where you live. Buy young, healthy plants that are not limp or straggly or that have been over-crowded in pots. On seeds, look at the date stamp on the package to make sure they are not too old.

Step 4. Prepare your soil for planting. This is one of the most important things to do for a successful garden. To prepare the soil, add a layer of compost or fertilizer over the top of the soil. Then till (or spade) this layer into the existing soil. Rake the soil into rows or mounds, depending on the type of vegetables you’ll be planting.

Step 5. Sow your seeds. If some of your vegetables will be planted from seeds, plant them first. Sometimes seeds are started indoors or in a greenouse to give them a good start. When seedlings appear, thin them to the distances recommended on the seed packets.

Step 6. Plant your plants. Plant young plants following the directions given by the plant nursery where you purchased them. Planting times can be tricky. You want to plant early, but not so early as to stunt their growth in cooler weather. Some plants will require netting or wire forms for best results.

Step 7. Care for your growing plants. Once your vegetables are all planted, you need to care for them by watering, weeding, pruning, and protecting them from insects.

Step 8. Harvest your garden. Different vegetables are harvested at different times. Vegetables should be carefully watched and picked at their peak. You may eat them immediately after harvesting or you can freeze or can them for later use.

The Future of the Auto Industry

As the administration looks for ways to help out the failing auto industry, I agree with Mr. Wipple quoted below, that this is the time to take an "out-of-the-box" look at the situation to see what makes the most sense as we move forward.

- Zev

The Peak Oil Crisis: Seize the Moment

by Tom Whipple

Earlier this week the Obama administration, now the effective owner of the U.S. automobile industry, put Detroit on notice that it has 30-60 days to come up with a believable plan to "restructure" itself or it goes into bankruptcy. This action makes it a good time to step back and ponder just where America's industrial base is going. With $2 gasoline and some incentives, recession-wracked American consumers seem willing and able to absorb another 8 or 9 million new gasoline and diesel powered cars and trucks this year --- but does this make any sense? The "restructuring" plan seems to be one of trimming overhead, shutting some factories, abrogating labor agreements, and stiffing shareholders, bondholders and debtors to the point where the manufacturers might be able to limp along with a minimal infusion of taxpayer dollars. This plan might be fine except for one glaring fallacy. In the next few years, oil prices are going up so high that ownership and use of the automobiles and trucks in their present form will be a totally uneconomic proposition. How many of the current flavor of cars and trucks is Detroit going to sell with gasoline at $10 a gallon or higher? full story

One Million Gardens

Given that the first days of Spring have officially arrived, I wanted to let you know about a an exciting national campaign to help stimulate the national move towards growing more of our food closer to home. As the economic challenges continue to grow, more and more Americans are considering getting involved in local food production. A spokesperson from the National Gardening Association recently mention that they expect Americans to plant up to 7,000,000 new food gardens this year.

As a way to help to accelerate this trend, just last month, the "One Million Gardens" campaign was launched.

The campaign's simple goal is:

To identify, encourage, and document the creation of at least 1,000,000 food gardens throughout the U.S. in 2009.

It is a 21st Century version of the Victory Garden campaign the Federal Government encouraged during World War 2 when over 20,000,000 gardens were planted as part of the War effort and associated rationing.

Please take a look at the site, add your garden to the list, and let others know about this campaign. It is also our hope that we can show the Obama administration the growing numbers of people involved in this work and help shift national policies to help encourage the production of more food closer to home.

Let's Get Growing!!!!!

While We Were Sleeping

As the current economic realities continue to unfold, it is critically important that Americans understand that what we are experiencing is a global interrelated challenge.

Over the past year or so, while America slept, China went on a shopping spree. According to the March 17th issue of the Washington Post,

Even as global financial flows have slowed sharply overall, China has dramatically stepped up its outbound investment. In 2008, its overseas mergers and acquisitions were worth $52.1 billion -- a record, according to the research firm Dealogic. In January and February of this year, Chinese companies invested $16.3 billion abroad, meaning that if the pace holds, the total for 2009 could be nearly double last year's.

On Feb. 12, China's state-owned metals giant Chinalco signed a $19.5 billion deal with Australia's Rio Tinto that will eventually double its stake in the world's second-largest mining company.

China is now actively in the process of insuring their future by buying up mineral and oils rights all across the planet. They are moving down the path of material abundance which we have been modeling for the past 30 years; and very little we say or do is going to change this anytime soon. The challenge for us is that with 1.3 billion people in China if they want to play the consumption game, that will put unimaginable stress on our ability to do the same.

Americans will be faced with the necessity of a different sort of future when it comes to energy. As these massive Asian countries lock up resources for their future, we will be forced to either fight them... which is not very realistic, or seriously begin to re-organize our energy demands so we are not as effected by these huge global shifts in control of resources.

If we can be successful in building the systems to provide for our needs much closer to home, we can help assure a less stressful transition from an oil dependent society to one with built-in resilience from the coming environmental and financial shocks.

For cities and states who enact legislation to encourage these changes, they will find themselves in a far better position than those who doggedly hold to the fading dream of ever growing economies full of more and more stuff.

Huge Tracks of Land

It was not until 2010 that the world really began to aggressively deal with its energy issues.

As it began to truly sink in that we were approaching an end to the "Age of Fossil Fuels" and moving into the beginning of the "Age of Renewables," individuals, groups, businesses and eventually governments, significantly ramped up their renewable energy planning.

Gazing over the acres and acres of shiny solar panels in the valley below, it was easy to see why it made sense to capture the energy that shines down upon this land. It was an added benefit that the landowners made the construction conditional on their ability to interplant shade-loving coffee between the long lines of sleek panels. Not a bad place for a renewable energy power plant.

It is just too bad we did not start all this a few years sooner...

Shining Examples of Sustainable Development

Americans are searching for a clear picture of what the future will look like given the tremendous force that is about to be exerted by the Obama Stimulus Package. This spending is not only a stimulus package but an effort to change economic and industrial direction for our nation from one that we know is depleting to one that we hope is sustainable. Like when a rock hits a wall it changes direction, so our economy has "hit the wall" and is certainly changing direction.

So what could this new model look like? How can we use less energy and still live a more fulfilling life? That is the question many Americans are asking and when a writer, Neshama Abraham wrote a little piece exploring this and looking at Oshara Village in Santa Fe New Mexico as a model, the internet picked up on it and made it the top pick for the Google search "Obama Future Today"

Oshara Village has super energy efficiency and mixed-use design that will provide homes, jobs and schools in walking distance. The Plaza and the first 40 homes are complete and a new line of Gold Certified, more cost efficient homes have emerged as a result of this economic change in direction. The first 20 families, the Oshara Pioneers are quickly becoming a community and more are moving in every month. Google "Obama Future Today" and see what the future might look like.

Totally Uncharted Territory

The news these days is sometime hard to hear. The trend is ever downward for so many. The mantra seems to be "we have never seen this before," and it is true for anyone less than 80 years old. What I find so interesting is the continual expectation that these challenges will eventually smooth out and we will get back to some semblance of order.

My intuition tells me something much different.

A recent column by Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Thomas Friedman said the following.

We have created a system for growth that depended on our building more and more stores to sell more and more stuff made in more and more factories in China, powered by more and more coal that would cause more and more climate change but earn China more and more dollars to buy more and more U.S. T-bills so America would have more and more money to build more and more stores and sell more and more stuff that would employ more and more Chinese ...

We can’t do this anymore.

“We created a way of raising standards of living that we can’t possibly pass on to our children,” said Joe Romm, a physicist and climate expert who writes the indispensable blog ClimateProgress.org. We have been getting rich by depleting all our natural stocks — water, hydrocarbons, forests, rivers, fish and arable land — and not by generating renewable flows.

What we are experience these days is nothing short of a re-structuring of what we have called normal for the past 60 to 80 years. We are now faced with an unprecedented combination of challenges including climate change, the end of inexpensive energy, and the unraveling of the economic fabric is crating a global situation we had NEVER experienced in our lifetimes, a culture changing perfect storm so to speak.

I firmly believe we will not "get back to normal" but that instead, we are in the early stages of moving to a new normal. As a species, we have had to make significant changes before so I am confident we have the ability to transition our culture to the next stage.

Deep, deep in our social and possibly genetic coding we know what to do. And we also know it takes great focus and perseverance. I do not assume it will be a smooth ride for everyone, transitions never are. But we have the opportunity to come through this with an American culture that is far more sustainable, reliant on the use of more local sources and having a high or higher overall quality of life.

We may very well consume far less stuff, but by refocusing ourselves towards those things that make live deeply rich and satisfying, we can replace what some may feel as "lost." These include a significant increase of interaction with people and the advantages of resilient and more self-reliant communities.

Transition Town Introduction

Here is a 30 minute video introducing the Transition Town Movement by Jennifer Grey one of the founders.

Another Word (or two) About Skiing

I do applaud the efforts by a number of Colorado ski mountains to reduce their environmental impacts. Programs to purchase wind power to power the lifts, bio-diesel to run the snow cats, and even recycling programs to handle waste and even compost are impressive. But no matter how hard the various mountains work at these efforts, by far the largest impact from skiing is out of the hands of the resorts.

I am talking about the tens of thousands of cars, trucks, SUV's and numerous airplanes which carry the skiers from their homes to the mountains and back. In some places the traffic generated by these trips causes traffic jams miles and miles long.

The bottom line is that we are being forces to look at our lifestyles in all areas and reinvent how we can still have fun and do our work while generating a much smaller ecological footprint in the process.

Sustainable Sports ... Not!

This past weekend I had the chance to visit a local ski slope with my family. Since I am not a skier, I spent some of my time hiking the trails bordering the ski mountain. As I walked by the homes scattered in the trees I was hit by the total unsustainability of it all. I could easily see how in the next few years, how this lifestyle enjoyed by many will become so difficult to maintain.

These large homes with gas-guzzling SUV's parked in the driveway and snowmobiles in the garage, will become too costly for many owners as the price of oil (and everything else made with and from oil) continues to rise. On top of that, their distance from any services such a food shopping, car service and almost all forms of entertainment, makes their location a major challenge when resources become harder to get.

All of this impressed up me how important it will be for us to learn how to live and organize ourselve more sustainably in the coming years.

Time to End the 1500 Mile Ceasar Salad

"Food Miles" refer to the distance that your food has been transported between its source farm and where you buy it. Food miles are one measure of the amount of energy used to transport your food and the consequent pollutants released by that transport. Estimates vary but transport may account for 20% or more of the total energy use associated with the provision of a given food item. As such, Food Miles are a relatively simple statistic that can be used to demonstrate the ecological importance of local foods.

Seventeen percent of this nation’s petroleum consumption is dedicated to on-the-farm food production. Add on processing, packaging, refrigeration and transport of edibles and food takes a big bite out of affordable oil supplies and contributes to pollution. Domestic food as basic as lettuce we could grow in front yards most of the year, and green houses in winter, travels up to 3,000 miles from field to table.

http://www.lifecyclesproject.ca/initiatives/food_miles/calculating_food_miles.php explains how this takes into effect greenhouse emissions.

Sustainable Table: Buy Local: http://www.sustainabletable.org/issues/buylocal/

Do food miles matter? | ES&T Online News: http://www.nrdc.org/health/foodmiles/

Creating Sustainable Communities

Alan Hoffman the Town Founder of Oshara Village in Santa Fe New Mexico, offers a compelling development option for new communites.

-Zev

The Obama Future is Here Today

Our new president Barack Obama has announced his intention to move our nation from oil dependency toward renewable energy, efficiency and sustainable innovation. Are there existing examples of how this new paradigm might look and work today?

In Santa Fe, New Mexico, a 450-acre environmental New Urbanist community offers a solution to Obama's call to action. Oshara Village is a mixed-use town designed for people not cars. It's a neighborhood where residents can walk to the central plaza and will be able to shop, visit a healthcare provider, drop their child off in day care, and go to work within a five-minute walk of their home. The design allows people to exercise more, drive less, and easily interact with their neighbors and live in passive solar homes with low energy use.

"We utilize many of the sustainable elements the Obama team espouses to help reduce consumption and emissions that cause global warming," said Alan Hoffman, town founder of Oshara Village. "At Oshara, the first 40 homes are super-insulated, oriented for passive solar gain, use solar hot water heating, and have energy-efficient appliances and lighting. The town also has an operational water purification plant that recycles all water from homes and businesses to be reused for all the town's landscaping and commercial uses," added Hoffman.

A study commissioned by the non-profit New Village Institute found that a family could save as much as 58.7 percent of its energy costs and reduce its carbon footprint by 26,000 pounds of CO2 per year in these kinds of energy-conscious walkable towns. Today, over 100 New Urban towns are complete in the United States and some like Oshara Village also emphasize energy-efficiency.

"We believe that by investing in conservation, “smart growth,” renewable energy and well-designed mixed-use towns, the United States will produce millions of new jobs, make us safer at home, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and increase the quality of our lives," said Hoffman.

For more information visit OsharaVillage.com and see the Oshara Model Video.

Alan Hoffman

4 Willow Back Road
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87508
505-316-0449

Visions of a Post Oil World

Greetings!

Bill McKibben the author of a dozen books including "The End of Nature," was recently interviewed and asked about what he felt the world could look like after the dust had settled and we successfully navigated these changes.

This sounds familiar...

- Zev

McKibben: I think it will look different depending on where you are. The economy will be much more localized. Many commodities, food, energy, entertainment will be much more likely to come from your neighbors or from people in your region than at present. I don’t think food will be traveling 2,000 miles. I think it will be traveling 20 miles. In a post-fossil fuel economy, energy will be coming from solar panels on your neighbor’s roof and your roof.

Not only will that provide good, clean power, but it will do that without your having to send your daughter or son off to the Persian Gulf to defend a 10,000-mile-long straw through which we suck hydrocarbons. We won’t have to blow the tops off any more mountains to mine coal. The most important parts of our standard of living, good food and good friends, will be strengthened by a more energy efficient economy. I look forward to its advent.

Now the Work Really Begins

With the inauguration of Barak Obama complete I feel a need to hunker down and really get to work. His leadership will only succeed if he has tens of millions of American working along side him through these increasingly challenging times.

For this reason I offer a short piece from STEPHANIE BERCHT Staff Writer for the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah , Georgia.

- Zev

The term “sustainability” can be confusing, as it is often related to a broad range of disciplines, usually associated with human development and its effect on the environment. The buzzword comes from “sustainable development”, which is defined as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” This term was coined in 1987 by Dr. Brundtland, the first appointed chairperson of the UN World Commission on Environment and Development. However, sustainability is not a new concept. The Great Law of the Iroquois long ago stated that “in our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decision on the next seven generations.” It relates to human development in terms of economy, culture as well as the environment.

Our way of life that thrives on excessive consumption is unsustainable – that is, we cannot maintain our lifestyle indefinitely because we are quickly depleting the resources that support it and consequently deteriorating the quality of our lives. The concept of sustainability is to continue development through wise choices in the way we use our natural resources. This includes reassessing where we get our energy from, how we use it and what we use it for, what type of food we eat, how we harvest it, what materials we use – for anything – and how we get all of this as well as what we do with the byproducts from our actions.It is not just about keeping the Earth green and clean for woodland creatures: we must take care of the environment for our race to continue. Once humans deplete every resource on this planet, who is really going to suffer? Once we are gone, Earth will bring itself back. That deserves some respect. And if we want to stick around, we should start showing some of that respect right now.

The Advantages of Community

It has become increasingly obvious, that when times are challenging, having the security of a strong community becomes very important. Unfortunately for the vast majority of Americans, we know almost no one who lives near us. This poses a great challenge as we attempt to build increasingly resilient and self reliant communities.

After a recent home owners meeting, I realize our neighborhood has a distinct advantage because I live in one of 115 cohousing neighborhoods in the U.S. These collaborative communities imported from Denmark, offer the advantages of home ownership plus the benefits of community and shared resources. Because of our intention to create a neighborhood with increased community, all of our neighbors have extensive experience working, playing, and making decisions together. Over the past 11 years, when issues come up, we have the ability to quickly connect with each other and make intelligent and long-lasting decisions.

For those of you who are not already connected to your neighbors, I strongly suggest taking steps to find out who lives around you, what skills they have, and begin to set up events where you can get together and begin the process of building a social network right where you currently live. One resource I suggest is the book Superbia: 31 Ways to Create Sustainable Neighborhoods by Dave Wann. Here you can find a wealth of ideas from simple to bold that will assist you to connect with your neighbors.

Only by connecting with one another can we move rapidly in this direction. Go out and knock on some doors. You may be pleasantly surprised who you meet.